§22,23. ORIGIN OF STAINED GLASS. 33 



still carried on ; but the art was long kept a profound secret, 

 and any one betraying it was condemned to the galleys. 

 Venice, therefore, had alone the advantage of supplying 

 other European markets with this valuable commodity, which 

 found its way into many countries, and even to China ; glass 

 was employed by her in the manufacture of false stones, as 

 well as various useful and ornamental objects; and so highly 

 was it prized, that slaves were ransomed with it from the 

 coast of Barbary.* 



To an early intercourse with Venice might reasonably be 

 attributed the introduction of the art of staining glass into 

 France ; and the manufacture of enamelled ware f at Limoges 

 is said by the Abbe Texier to have owed its origin tp a colony 

 of Venetians, who settled there in 979, and who had with 

 them many Byzantine artists. This settlement was connected 

 with their trade in spices and oriental stuffs, brought in their 

 ships from Egypt to Marseilles ; and the fact of the builder of 

 St. Mark's, the Doge Pietro Orseolo I., soon after he abdicated 

 the Dogeship, having fixed his residence in France (a.d. 978), 

 is another proof of the intimate relations which subsisted at 

 that period between the Venetians and the French. To the 

 same Doge Orseolo has been ascribed the erection of the 

 church of St. Front at Perigueux— a building supposed to have 

 been copied from St. Mark's at Venice, but with the pecu- 

 liarity of pointed arches ; which also occur in several of the 

 early churches in that neighbourhood of the same Byzantine 

 style. 



23. The manufacture of stained glass evidently came to 

 France either directly from the Greeks of Constantinople, or 

 through the Venetians ; and it would not be difficult to account 

 for Byzantine influence extending to France, when the Greeks 



* According to the advice of Marco Polo. 



f The Romans were acquainted with real enamelling as well as the inlaying 

 of the material within raised metal borders (a eloisons, or cloisonne). 



D 



